In the game of golf the putter and putting stroke are undoubtedly the most important aspects of the game. The putter is used on every hole and poor putting can lead to high scores even when the player is hitting the ball well with other clubs in the golf bag. Although the putting stroke appears to be simple and is probably the least practiced by the average player, the putting stoke is the least tolerant of errors. For example misalignment of the putting blade of only 0.004 inches on a ten foot putt can cause the ball to miss the hole by 5 inches.
Various devices have been designed to aid the player in proper alignment of the striking face of the putter blade. Among the most common of these aides are those consisting, in one form or the other, of elongated members which extend from the back face of the putter and which are utilized as aiming devices to align the striking face of the club. These devices, such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,659,231, 3,917,277, 4,291,883, 4,647,045 and 4,789,158 all include elongated members which extend normally from the club face and which are supported by various mechanisms, either on the club head itself or, as in the case of 4,781,958 on the club shaft. The devices are normally removable from the club head since such devices can not be utilized during tournament play pursuant to the rules of the various golf regulating bodies. Several of the devices are designed to permit moving the elongated setting number into a position where the club can be stored in the golf bag without interference by the sighting device.
Although these devices in principal are effective, it should be understood that the manufacturing tolerances of an device of the type being discussed is critical in order to maintain a precise relationship between the aiming member and the striking face of the putter. As pointed out above a very minor error in alignment of the arm can result in missed putts and, in such a case, the aiming device may in fact cause the player to misalign the striking face of the club more than if the club was aligned by the player without any aiming aids. The manufacturing costs to achieve the necessary tolerances can add substantially to the selling price of an aiming device and in some cases tolerances may be sacrificed to keep the selling price as low as possible.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to provide an aiming aid for a golf putter which is inexpensive to manufacture by eliminating much of the criticality of machining tolerances and the resultant errors in club face alignment which can result from sloppy tolerances.